Immigrants were expected to solve Canada’s aging crisis. Here’s why birth rates are falling

This study has deservedly getting a lot of coverage:

…Her story — a 1.5-generation immigrant who arrived as a child, built a career, navigated cultural expectations and made calculated decisions planning a family — is one that researchers say is becoming increasingly common among immigrants and their children in Canada, with significant implications for how we think about population growth.

Over the last two decades, fertility rates among immigrants and their children have shifted markedly, researchers say, and the trend affects debates over immigration levels, which streams to prioritize, and which source countries best support long-term population growth.

“Population aging is about the relative size of different generations,” said Rachel Margolis, a professor in demography and sociology at Western University.

“If we add in a lot of working-age people and they have a lot of kids, it adds to both. But if we add a lot of working-age people and they don’t have that many kids, we still have a smaller kid generation and it contributes even more to population aging.”

Fertility gaps among immigrant groups

Margolis co-authored a new Western University study that used Canadian long-form census data from 2001 to 2021 to estimate birth rates across immigrant subgroups by generation, immigration stream, temporary and permanent status and source country.

Immigrants still have higher fertility than native-born Canadians, but the gap has narrowed over two decades, from 0.24 births in 2001 to 0.11 in 2021. First-generation immigrants — those who arrived after age 15 — have the highest fertility of any group. But the 1.5 generation, those who came as children like Wijesingha, have even lower fertility than both their first-generation and Canadian-born peers.

Fertility rate is the average number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime; the magic number of children needed for a generation to replace itself is 2.1, to maintain the population.

Among immigration streams, family-class permanent residents have the highest fertility rates, followed by refugees, with economic immigrants at the bottom of the three. Adding to the mix, temporary residents — international students and foreign workers — have the lowest of all. And across nearly all of Canada’s top 10 source countries, fertility rates have fallen since 2001, with most now below the 2.1 replacement level — and far below what those same countries produce at home. 

Margolis said she was surprised by the wide gap in fertility between the women coming to Canada and their counterparts back home. For instance, in 2021, immigrant women from India had a birth rate that’s three-quarters of a birth less than their counterparts back home; similar trends were observed for newcomers from other countries….

Source: Immigrants were expected to solve Canada’s aging crisis. Here’s why birth rates are falling